March Madness
OK, there were wall-to-wall college hoops games across multiple dials last night.
I have to believe the betting apps across the state of Tennessee also were quite busy.
There will be even more action today as the full slates of college hoops happen, and the first power five game is at 11:30 this morning as Indiana faces Michigan in the Big Ten tournament.
That said, we will be having a couple of NCAA bracket contests for those of you looking to play along.
First, we will offer our traditional “First 1 out; last one-plus standing” contest for you guys and gals.
Second, when the sheets are released over the weekend, we’ll for the first time have a link to a national contest with some cool prizes for you guys.
And the brackets are an interesting talking point to me, and not just because it’s sports gambling.
Considering the NCAA has forever displayed the vision of any of the three blind mice, I’m betting there has been little discussed on this matter too, but there should be.
March Madness pretty much pays for all of non-football college sports on the national level. More than 95% of the NCAA’s revenue comes from the men’s basketball tournament, which has become a 10-figure TV contract.
That popularity has skyrocketed despite a dropping overall interest in college basketball over the last decade-plus.
Sure, the Madness of March has helped the popularity, but the Dance became this big of a deal because of the brackets.
Even folks who never gambled would have an office pool entry or three. Susan may have picked hers by uniform color; Tom in accounting’s 12-year-old son may have done his by which mascot would win in a fight against the others.
Since knowing the most about college basketball only was a minor aid, your system was irrelevant for the most part. But having skin in the game – “C’mon N.C. A&T, if you upset Duke I could move into 23rd” – was infectious.
But, in the age of the pandemic and the fallout of working from home, the simple word math should not be lost on anyone involved in college basketball: “It’s a lot harder to have an office pool when next to no one is going to your office.”
Sure, there are online options aplenty. And we’ll have one next week for you good folks, too.
That said, the connection between Susan and Tom’s preteen and everyone else who scans the standings for the next three Mondays trying to figure out how far they need the Mocs to go to make up some ground since Kansas wet the bed was part of the Madness that I don’t know if we’ll ever get back.
NFL’s reach
Man, two very interesting NFL talking points filled my Twitter on Wednesday.
And neither had anything to do with Carson Wentz. (Side question: I think Dan Orlovsky is great as an in-game football analyst but is there a QB in the NFL that he does not have in the top 15? Orlovsky loves Matt Stafford way more than anyone this side of Matt Stafford’s Mrs., and he’s been over-the-top in his praise for Carson Wentz, too. Thoughts? And while no one will ever be a sport-specific homer the way Dickie V is to college basketball coaches, Danny O is tight with the QB crowd apparently.)
The first is the reports that Kirk Herbstreit is headed to Amazon for the Thursday night streaming broadcasts, which start next year. Here’s more on that.
We talked some about that possibility last week, but Kirk will assuredly be missed on the College GameDay set if his time with ESPN is truly over.
The other was a report recycled from late last year that claims the talks of expansion are way beyond the ‘kicking the tires’ phase in the NFL’s highest circles.
There’s talk about as many as 40 NFL teams, which seems a) like too many, and b) way too many teams for capable quarterbacks.
Well, unless you ask Dan Orlovsky, that is.
Baseball’s strike zone
In a move that pleases exactly no one, MLB chief goofball in charge Rob Manfred canceled more 2022 regular-season games Wednesday.
As it sits, the earliest the season can start now is April 14, and any hope for progressing negotiations and a deal fizzled as Wednesday afternoon became Wednesday evening.
Both sides are making a mistake that seems impossible to overstate considering the climate of sports in general – the pandemic allowed a lot of folks to realize that the sun does not rise and set on who is pitching middle relief for the Yankees or who the Dodgers have hitting fifth – and the anger that is brewing among baseball fans.
And either side who feels like they deserve credit for back-to-back bargaining sessions that have been described as marathons and lasting well into the late night/early morning needs to check themselves.